AstraZeneca eases its headache with a £232m sale

AstraZeneca today dulled its pains by selling the rights to a migraine treatment for more than $300 million (£232 million).

The landmark deal will see Germany’s Grunenthal, best known for developing Thalidomide as a morning-sickness treatment, get the global rights to Zomig in all markets outside Japan.

Grunenthal will pay AstraZeneca $200 million and the Anglo-Swedish company will receive up to $102 million in milestone payments.

AstraZeneca will concentrate in future on three main treatment areas: oncology, respiratory illness and cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. It has sold or licensed out a number of its older drugs recently.

It is betting heavily that its cancer drugs will revive its fortunes after fighting off a £70 billion takeover attempt by Pfizer in 2014.

Astra is developing a new class of cancer treatments and hopes its Lynparza drug, which has already been approved for use in a form of late-stage ovarian cancer, will be approved for use in breast cancer.

It has revealed the results of its Lynparza trials, saying patients taking the drug typically went for seven months before their cancer became worse.